


chicken soup

by strix_alba



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4094320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strix_alba/pseuds/strix_alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Karen does her best impression of a zombie, and Matt does his best impression of someone with a good bedside manner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chicken soup

**Author's Note:**

> fill for the prompt "Matt/Karen, platonic forehead kissing" over at such_heights's delightful (and ongoing!) [MCU kissing fest](http://such-heights.dreamwidth.org/459287.html). I don't really expect this one to be interesting besides maybe to the prompter, but I like having all my fic in one place.
> 
> (Unapologetic sick-fic, so content warning for the associated unpleasant smells and reference to throwing up)

Matt arrives at her apartment in the evening, after reassuring Foggy that yes, he would be able to tell exactly how sick she was and then report back. (“Heat, sweat … there’s a, different diseases sometimes have different smells. Don’t worry.”) He hears slow, shuffling footsteps approaching the door.

“Don’t come in,” she says. “If I get you sick, that’s more than half the company out of work.” But she moves to the side, and Matt taps his cane around to make sure that he doesn’t step on whatever enormous quantity of wool she appears to have wrapped herself in before he walks into the stale warm air ( _body heat and fever sweat, vomit and subsequent sink-washing_ ) in her apartment. 

“I’ll take my chances,” he says. “Besides, I brought soup.”

“ _Thank you_.” Karen shuffles towards the living area, strange and listless compared to her usual deliberate stride. It’s unsettling; even at her worst, Matt has never found her to be lacking energy. “Seriously, thank you so much.” 

“We’re still a new firm; it would be bad for business if we let our only employee die of a mysterious illness,” he says with a smile, because she’s obviously miserable enough without having to deal with attempts at sympathy.

She huffs weakly as she lowers herself down onto the couch with the belabored movements of the mildly feverish. Matt frowns at that. “How are you holding up?” He recalls the kitchen on the left, and makes his way to the counter by echo and the click of his cane, sets down the paper bag that he’s been carrying for the last five-odd blocks.

“Well, it’s been eleven hours since I last threw up, so I’ve got that going for me,” she croaks from the other room, “but I don’t think I can take much more reality TV.”

“Can’t say I know much about television, but I’ve got the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on tape, if you want. For a change of pace.” He finds his way to the cabinets and opens them, running his hands delicately over their contents until he finds a bowl into which he can pour the soup.

“No thanks. I keep dreaming about shadows at the windows. Fever dreams. I don’t want to know how weird they would get with that,” she admits. “Oh, are you — you don’t have to…”

“I have at least an eighty percent success rate at pouring liquids,” he assures her, lying through his teeth. “Though it would help if you could tell me where you keep your spoons.”

It takes her a couple of tries to accurately describe which drawer they are in — it would probably have been easier just go hunting himself — but in the end, he is able to bring her a carefully balanced bowl of chicken and rice soup that he bought from the cleanest and least greasy-feeling kitchen he could find in the neighborhood. Karen rearranges the rasping wool of her blanket around herself, pushing up against the cushions until she appears to be upright and facing him.

“Can I feel your forehead?” he asks.

There is a pause. “I nodded. Sorry. It’s … everything’s fuzzy up here. In my brain.”

He reaches in the direction of her voice, and a little up; she tilts her head into the path of his hand. Her hair is greasy, and damp at the roots. Matt touches the back of his palm to her forehead, although this close to her, its easy to feel both the unnaturally concentrated heat radiating off her body and the way that she shivers every once in a while despite her cocoon of blankets.

“What’s the prognosis, doc?” she asks.

“You’re not the hottest person I’ve ever felt,” he tells her, and realizes how that sounds as soon as the words leave his mouth.

“Gosh, thanks Matt. You sure know how to charm ‘em.” She laughs, which turns into a phlegm-filled cough whose reverberations in the air are partially absorbed by something that sounds like a cardboard cube on the floor next to the couch — tissues, he reasons, and reaches down to hand her the box. She sneezes loudly and Matt winces in sympathy with her sinuses. 

He sits down next to Karen while she alternately drinks soup, blows her nose, and tries to complain about _Dancing With the Stars_ until she inevitably gets too passionate in her irritation and starts to cough. Matt half-listens to her voice, half-listens to her body, feeling slightly guilty about it in the way that had crept up on him… lately. Her heart beats just a little faster than normal, keeping up with the demands of her immune system. When she breathes in, he can hear the pull in her lungs, air going through wet, mucus-y passageways, but it’s a sound that he hears frequently enough as he goes around the city that it’s probably just one of the many variations on winter illnesses from living in close proximity to four million other people. It doesn’t sound pleasant, but Matt has never had a particularly good self-preservation instinct, so he folds his hands in his lap and lets her lean against him.

“You don’t have to stay,” she says, when she has finished her soup and he can only hear the occasional clink of spoon against bowl. “I promise not to die.”

“The only reason that Foggy didn’t skip his date to hover over you is because I told him I’d hover on his behalf,” he says. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“No, thanks. I’m just going to go to sleep, I think.”

“Of course.” He takes the empty bowl from her and rinses it in the sink. Behind him, Karen settles back down along the couch, feverish body bright in his awareness and easy to bring into focus. She lets the blanket drape a little looser, less like a fuzzy straightjacket, so Matt thinks that soup may have been a good idea.

“I’ll lock the door on my way out,” he tells her, returning to the couch. “Once you’re asleep.” 

She makes a small grumpy noise under her breath but doesn't argue. “Can you check the windows?”

“And the windows.” He hesitates for a moment, before leaning down to touch the part of her face that is still exposed to the open air, and kisses the top of her head. “I won’t let anything get in.”

“Thanks,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice despite its roughness.

He balances himself on the arm of the couch, hand on her shoulder. She drifts restlessly for a few minutes before finally settling down, pulse slowing and breathing relatively even. Once she starts to snore, Matt gets up and stretches. He walks the perimeter of the apartment, double-checking all of the locks and drawing the blinds in the bedroom. There are three locks on the door: one built into the knob, one chain, and one deadbolt. There’s nothing he can do about the deadbolt, but he fiddles with the chain from the outside until he hears it catch on the frame, and pulls the door shut behind him. He hopes it will be enough.


End file.
